Okra with Tuna and Daikon

Oooh, I found these pretty Japanese cookie cutters at Nijiya the other day. I have been using them to cut daikon and carrots into the cutest shapes. The other day I made a okra, tuna and daikon salad. It was delicious and very healthy.

• 1 pound okra
• 1/2 can tuna
• daikon
• Pinch of toogarashi (red pepper flakes)
• Shoyu (soy sauce) to taste
• splash of mirin
• sugar

Wash then boil the okra in a saucepan of boiling water until almost tender but still firm. Drain and put in refrigerator to cool. When ready to eat, slice okra into 1/4-inch rings, put in small mixing bowl and then add tuna. Also add daikon that has been simmering for 5 minutes in a soy sauce/mirin/sugar sauce (make this sauce to taste. Usually I put in 1/3 cup soy sauce, a splash of mirin and a tbsp of sugar). Stir everything together and add shoyu to moisten and to taste and add a touch of toogarashi, depending on how spicy you like it.

Ramayani, West L.A.

My friend and I went to Ramayani, an Indonesian restaurant on Westwood Blvd the other day. They have a very filling lunch special from noon to 3 pm for $8.95. We also got this appetizer---fish cakes grilled in banana leaf. So pretty! Everything was quite satisfying and yummy. Parking is a little difficult in the area, just fyi.

Sweet Potato Croquettes

I made these fantastic sweet potato croquettes without a deep fryer! Instead, I pan fried them in olive oil and flipped them. They are crusted in panko, a Japanese bread crumb. Click here for the full recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 medium potatoes (I used sweet potatoes)
• 1/4 lb ground beef
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• salt pepper to season
• vegetable oil for frying
• flour and panko (breadcrumb) for coating

Soy Simmered Burdock root

Burdock root is a common Asian vegetable that comes as a really long brown root. Peel it and then simmer it slowly. It has a lot of great health benefits. Click here for full recipe.

1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 small fresh or dried red chili, seeded
1 scallion, chopped
1 cup water

Moong Dal

I made this recipe the other day with mung beans. It has the flavors of India, such as garam masala and cumin. It might not look pretty, but it tasted great. I soaked the mung beans overnight to make them more digestible. I guess mung beans are touted as a great bean because they are easy to digest and contain tons of nutrients. Click here for the full recipe.

• 1 cup moong or split moong or maash daal
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
  
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion (optional)
  
• 3 tablespoons cooking oil
  
• 5-10 cloves garlic, minced or thinly sliced into little ovals
  
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  
• 2-3 dried red chilies
  
• 3-4 sprigs chopped fresh cilantro
  
• Dash garam masala (optional)

Harumi's Salmon Shrimp Cakes

This is also a recipe from Everyday Harumi. The salmon cakes are drizzled with homemade ponzu sauce and topped with finely sliced ginger. It tastes like something you would get at a fancy Japanese restaurant! Buy the book to get the recipe :)

Babycakes, Downtown L.A.

Hooray for guilt free desserts! I've been wanting to try Babycakes for soooo long now, since it opened in downtown L.A. This NYC transplant shop is known for their gluten/dairy/soy/sugar free concoctions. I can see your eyebrow raised skeptically. It really is delicious.

We ordered the following. And yes, we ate this all in one day. All are gluten/dairy/soy/sugar free unless noted

2 chocolate chip cookies (this one has sugar)

a pack of day old donuts (this has sugar)

a chocolate cupcake and a carrot cupcake

a mini brownie

banana bread

a cup of coffee

The coffee really was "ah-maaa-zing" like they claim. My favorite of everything was the chocolate cupcake---sooo good!!!

Pitfire Pizza, West L.A.

Pitfire Pizza is a poor(er) man's Mozza. The toppings are strikingly similar to Mozza's, but the prices are just a tad cheaper. Plus, you don't have to book a reservation months in advance ;)

You order at the counter and they bring the pizza to your table. We came here with a bunch of friends and Brad and I split a pizza--half shrimp (Big Sur) and half sausage. It was a good amount because we weren't super hungry, but if you come on an empty stomach I would definitely order your own.

Out of all the pizzas I have tried here, my favorite is the pumpkin pizza, which is actually not on the menu, but is one of their rotating specials.

Harumi's Green Beans with Sesame Seed

The Japanese love garnishing things with ground toasted sesame seeds. You can buy packets of the stuff at any Japanese market. This time, it's green beans that are coated in the stuff. A tiny bit of sugar, some mirin and soy sauce sweetens the dish up and magically turns green beans into something addictive!

Click here for the full recipe

Serves 4
200g green beans

For the sesame dressing
50g toasted sesame seeds
2 tablespoons of caster sugar
1/2 tablespoon of mirin
1/2-1 tablespoon of soy sauce
salt- to season

Rock Sugar, Century City (West L.A.)

Rock Sugar is sister to The Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang's. My friend and I came here for lunch mainly to marvel at the architecture. The food turned out to be really good too! Too bad I only had a chance to take two pictures. We ordered the lunch special which is 3 courses shared between two or more people at around $13 per person. The first course is your choice of soup/salad, the second is noodle/rice, and the third is a meat dish. We decided on the grapefruit salad, pictured above. It came in a sweet vinegar dressing topped with sweet walnuts. It was a perfect light accompaniment to the heavier chicken and noodle dishes we got. Portions were more than generous and we left feeling we definitely got what we paid for.

Instead of bread, they bring out rice crackers with a hot dipping sauce

Harumi's Soup

Also from the book Everyday Harumi. It's a great "throw everything in one pot" soup. In this one, I have leeks, mushroom, cabbage, turnip and pork. Buy the book to get the recipe! :)

Harumi's Kabocha with Sesame Seed

This recipe is from the book Everyday Harumi. It's got toasted ground sesame seeds coating the kabocha (pumpkin), which has simmered in a sweet dashi soy broth.

Harumi's Mabo Tofu

I made this fantastic mabo tofu from the cookbook Everyday Harumi. It was unbelievably easy and sooooo good. This is a dish I can see everyone enjoying. Click here for the full recipe.

1 1/4 cups dashi stock (see recipe below)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
1 tablespoon sake
2 tablespoons mirin
2 fat cloves garlic
1/2 ounce fresh ginger, peeled
2 scallions
1 pound, 5 ounces silken tofu
salt
vegetable oil
7 ounces ground pork or beef
2 dried red chiles, sliced into rings
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water